The World Food Prize Foundation is honoring the work of Rattan Lal, who dedicated his life to study the effect of soil health in food production and climate change mitigation. On October 15 he will receive the 2020 World Food Prize, considered the “Nobel Prize” of agriculture.
Lal, who serves as distinguished professor of Soil Science and founding director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University, is a visionary who understood the intricate relationship between soil conservation, yield potential, nutrition and carbon sequestration.
“Dr. Lal’s innovative research demonstrated how healthy soils are a crucial component of sustainable agricultural intensification — enabling higher crop yields, while requiring less land, agrochemicals, tillage, water and energy”, announced the World Food Prize Foundation in a press release.
Lal becomes the 50th person to receive the World Food Prize since the late Norman Borlaug — 1970 Nobel Peace Prize laureate — established the award in 1987. The award acknowledges outstanding contributions to human development by individuals who significantly improve the quality, quantity and availability of food on a global scale.
“CIMMYT actively researches and promotes the sustainable farming practices that Dr. Lal studied and advocated for since the late 1980s, such as no tillage, residue retention and crop rotation, which combined with new precision farming technologies help farmers increase yields, reduce food production costs and protect the environment”, said Bram Govaerts, Integrated Development director and representative for the Americas at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
A new policy brief produced by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) lays out a clear case for the benefits and importance of conservation agriculture, and a road map for accelerating its adoption in Eastern India.
A collaborative effort by research and policy partners including ICAR, the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and national academic and policy institutions, the brief represents the outputs of years of both rigorous scientific research and stakeholder consultations.
Eastern India — an area comprising seven states — is one of the world’s most densely populated areas, and a crucial agricultural zone, feeding more than a third of India’s population. The vast majority — more than 80% — of its farmers are smallholders, earning on average, just over half the national per capita income.
Conservation agriculture (CA) consists of farming practices that aim to maintain and boost yields and increase profits while reversing land degradation, protecting the environment and responding to climate change. These practices include minimal mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover with living or dead plant material, and crop diversification through rotation or intercropping. A number of studies have shown the success of conservation agriculture in combatting declining factor productivity, deteriorating soil health, water scarcity, labor shortages, and climate change in India.
The road map lists recommended steps for regional and national policy makers, including
establishing a database repository on conservation agriculture for eastern India,
setting up common learning platform and sites for science-based evidence on CA,
developing an effective and productive supply chain system for CA machinery,
offering subsidies for CA machinery as incentives to farmers,
adopting pricing strategies to encourage market demand for sustained adoption of CA,
developing synergies for effective coordination between NARS and CGIAR institutions, and
A combine harvester equipped with the Super SMS (left) harvests rice while a tractor equipped with the Happy Seeder is used for direct seeding of wheat. (Photo: Sonalika Tractors)
Partners include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS), the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Bihar Agricultural University, and the Department of Agriculture of the state of Bihar.
Hafiz Uddin, a farmer from Ulankhati, Tanpuna, Barisal, Bangladesh. He used seeder fertilizer drills to plant mung beans on one acre of land, which resulted in a better yield than planting manually. (Photo: Ranak Martin)
Over the last few decades, deteriorating soil fertility has been linked to decreasing agricultural yields in South Asia, a region marked by inequities in food and nutritional security.
As the demand for fertilizers grows, researchers are working with government and businesses to promote balanced nutrient management and the appropriate use of organic amendments among smallholder farmers. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has published a new policy brief outlining opportunities for innovation in the region.
Like all living organisms, crops need access to the right amount of nutrients for optimal growth. Plants get nutrients — like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, in addition to other crucially important micronutrients — from soils and carbon, hydrogen, oxygen from the air and water. When existing soil nutrients are not sufficient to sustain good crop yields, additional nutrients must be added through fertilizers or manures, compost or crop residues. When this is not done, farmers effectively mine the soil of fertility, producing short-term gains, but undermining long-term sustainability.
Nutrient management involves using crop nutrients as efficiently as possible to improve productivity while reducing costs for farmers, and also protecting the environment by limiting greenhouse gas emissions and water quality contamination. The key behind nutrient management is appropriately balancing soil nutrient inputs — which can be enhanced when combined with appropriate soil organic matter management — with crop requirements. When the right quantities are applied at the right times, added nutrients help crops yields flourish. On the other hand, applying too little will limit yield and applying too much can harm the environment, while also compromising farmers’ ability to feed themselves or turn profits from the crops they grow.
Smallholder farmers in South Asia commonly practice poor nutrition management with a heavy reliance on nitrogenous fertilizer and a lack of balanced inputs and micronutrients. Declining soil fertility, improperly designed policy and nutrient management guidelines, and weak fertilizer marketing and distribution problems are among the reasons farmers fail to improve fertility on their farms. This is why it is imperative to support efforts to improve soil organic matter management and foster innovation in the fertilizer industry, and find innovative ways to target farmers, provide extension services and communicate messages on cost-effective and more sustainable strategies for matching high yields with appropriate nutrient management.
Cross-country learning reveals opportunities for improved nutrient management. The policy brief is based on outcomes from a cross-country dialogue facilitated by CSISA earlier this year in Kathmandu. The meeting saw researchers, government and business stakeholders from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka discuss challenges and opportunities to improving farmer knowledge and access to sufficient nutrients. Several key outcomes for policy makers and representatives of the agricultural development sector were identified during the workshop, and are included in the brief.
Extension services as an effective way to encourage a more balanced use of fertilizers among smallholder farmers. There is a need to build the capacity of extension to educate smallholders on a plant’s nutritional needs and proper fertilization. It also details how farmers’ needs assessments and human-centered design approaches need to be integrated while developing and delivering nutrient application recommendations and extension materials.
Nutrient subsidies must be reviewed to ensure they balance micro and macro-nutrients. Cross-country learning and evidence sharing on policies and subsidies to promote balanced nutrient application are discussed in the brief, as is the need to balance micro and macro-nutrient subsidies, in addition to the organization of subsidy programs in ways that assure farmers get access the right nutrients when and where they are needed the most. The brief also suggests additional research and evidence are needed to identify ways to assure that farmers’ behavior changes in response to subsidy programs.
Market, policy, and product innovations in the fertilizer industry must be encouraged. It describes the need for blended fertilizer products and programs to support them. A blend is made by mixing two or more fertilizer materials. For example, particles of nitrogen, phosphate and small amounts of secondary nutrients and micronutrients mixed together. Experience with blended products are uneven in the region, and markets for blends are nascent in Bangladesh and Nepal in particular. Cross-country technical support on how to develop blending factories and markets could be leveraged to accelerate blended fertilizer markets and to identify ways to ensure equitable access to these potentially beneficial products for smallholder farmers.
Conserving organic matter in soils improves vital nutrients in wheat, according to new study in Ethiopia. On World Food Day, CIMMYT Systems Agronomist Frédéric Baudron highlights the role of healthy soils as a tool for fighting malnutrition, in an article published on The Conversation.
The study by Baudron and Stephen A. Wood of The Nature Conservancy found that wheat grown on soils rich in organic matter, especially near the forest, had more essential nutrients like zinc and protein. Ethiopia faces varying levels of hidden hunger: a deficiency in vitamins and minerals in food, despite rising yields.
In Ethiopia and many low and middle-income countries, Nitrogen-based fertilizers are out of reach for farmers. But low-cost techniques like agroforestry, minimum tillage, and planting nitrogen-fixing legumes can help African farmers enhance soils, and have been successfully implemented in different African farming systems. The study found that wheat farms near forests had richer soils due to decomposing trees and plants, and more livestock manure, pointing to the benefits of an integrated approach.
The researchers conclude that healthy soils are an important tool for “feeding the world well” and achieving Zero Hunger, one of the Sustainable Development Goals. “The finding offers a new solution in addressing growing malnutrition,” writes Baudron.
Original study: Wood SA and Baudron F. 2018. Soil organic matter underlies crop nutritional quality and productivity in smallholder agriculture. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 266 (100-108). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2018.07.025
Farmer Eveline Musafari intercrops maize and a variety of legumes on her entire farm. She likes the ability to grow different food crops on the same space, providing her family with more food to eat and sell. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Honest Musafari, a fifty-year-old farmer from rural Zimbabwe, eagerly picks up a clump of soil from his recently harvested field to show how dark and fertile it is. A farmer all his life, Musafari explains the soil has not always been like this. For years, he and his neighbors had to deal with poor eroding soil that increasingly dampened maize yields.
“My soil was getting poorer each time I plowed my field, but since I stopped plowing, left the crop residues and planted maize together with legumes the soil is much healthier,” says Musafari. His 1.6-hectare maize-based farm, in the Murehwa district, supports his family of six.
For over two years, Musafari has been one of the ten farmers in this hot and dry area of Zimbabwe to trial intercropping legumes and green manure cover crops alongside their maize, to assess their impact on soil fertility.
The on-farm trials are part of efforts led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and government extension services to promote climate-resilient cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Increasing land degradation at the farm and landscape level is the major limitation to food security and livelihoods for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, says CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder.
“Over 65 percent of soils in Africa are degraded. They lack the nutrients needed for productive crops. This is a major part of the reason why the region’s maize yields are not increasing,” he explains. “The failure to address poor soil health will have a disastrous effect on feeding the region’s growing population.”
The area where Musafari lives was chosen to test intercropping, along with others in Malawi and Zambia, for their infamous poor soils.
Mixing it up
When legumes are intercropped with maize they act as a green manure adding nutrients to the soil through nitrogen fixation. Intercropping legumes and cereals along with the principles of conservation agriculture are considered away to sustainable intensify food production in Africa. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Planted in proximity to maize, legumes — like pigeon pea, lablab and jack beans — add nitrogen to the soil, acting as green manure as they grow, says Thierfelder. Essentially, they replace the nutrients being used by the cereal plant and are an accessible form of fertilizer for farmers who cannot afford mineral fertilizers to improve soil fertility.
“Our trials show legumes are a win for resource poor family farmers. Providing potentially 5 to 50 tons per hectare of extra organic matter besides ground cover and fodder,” he notes. “They leave 50 to 350 kg per hectare of residual nitrogen in the soil and do not need extra fertilizer to grow.”
Added to the principles of conservation agriculture — defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping — farmers are well on their way to building a resilient farm system, says Geoffrey Heinrich, a senior technical advisor for agriculture with CRS working to promote farmer adoption of green manure cover crops.
For years Musafari, as many other smallholder farmers in Africa, tilled the land to prepare it for planting, using plows to mix weeds and crop residues back into the soil. However, this intensive digging has damaged soil structure, destroyed most of the organic matter, reduced its ability to hold moisture and caused wind and water erosion.
Letting the plants do the work
Growing legumes alongside maize provides immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops farmers can sell for a quick income. The legumes also improve the nitrogen levels in the soil and can save farmers money, as maize needs less fertilizer. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Musafari says the high price of mineral fertilizer puts it out of reach for farmers in his community. They only buy little amounts when they have spare cash, which is never enough to get its full benefit.
He was at first skeptical green manure cover crops could improve the quality of his soil or maize yields, he explains. However, he thought it was worth a try, considering growing different crops on the same plot would provide his family with more food and the opportunity to make some extra cash.
“I’m glad I tried intercropping. Every legume I intercropped with my maize improved the soil structure, its ability to capture rain water and also improved the health of my maize,” he says.
Thierfelder describes how this happens. Nitrogen fixation, which is unique to leguminous crops, is a very important process for improving soil fertility. This process involves bacteria in the soil and nitrogen in the air. The bacteria form small growths on the plant roots, called nodules, and capture the atmospheric nitrogen as it enters the soil. The nodules change the nitrogen into ammonia, a form of nitrogen plants use to produce protein.
In addition, legumes grown as a cover crop keep soil protected from heavy rains and strong winds and their roots hold the soil in place, the agronomist explains. They conserve soil moisture, suppress weeds and provide fodder for animals and new sources of food for consumption or sale.
Farmers embrace intercropping
Extension worker Memory Chipinguzi explains the benefits of intercropping legumes with cereals to farmers at a field day in the Murehwa district, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT)
Working with CIMMYT, Musafari and his wife divided a part of their farm into eight 20 by 10 meter plots. On each plot, they intercropped maize with a different legume: cowpea, jack bean, lablab, pigeon pea, sugar bean and velvet bean. They also tried intercropping with two legumes on one of the plots. Then they compared all those options to growing maize alone.
“Season by season the soil on each of the trial plots has got darker and my maize healthier,” describes Musafari. “Rains used to come and wash away the soil, but now we don’t plow or dig holes, so the soil is not being washed away; it holds the water.”
“I really like how the legumes have reduced the weeds. Before we had a major problem with witchweed, which is common in poor soils, but now it’s gone,” he adds.
Since the first season of the trial, Musafari’s maize yields have almost tripled. The first season his maize harvested 11 bags, or half a ton, and two seasons later it has increased to 32 bags, or 1.5 tons.
Musafari’s wife Eveline has also been convinced about the benefits of intercropping, expressing the family now wants to extend it to the whole farm. “Intercropping has more advantages than just growing maize. We get different types of food on the same space. We have more to eat and more to sell,” she says.
The family prefers intercropping with jack bean and lablab. Even though they were among the hardest legumes to sell, they improved the soil the most. They also mature at the same time as their maize, so they save labor as they only have to harvest once.
The benefits gained during intercropping have influenced farmers to adopt it as part of their farming practices at most of our trial sites across southern Africa, CRS’s Heinrich says.
“Immediate benefits, such as reduced weeding labor and legume cash crops that farmers can sell off quick, provide a good incentive for adoption,” he adds.
Honest and Eveline Musafari with extension worker, Memory Chipinguzi. Neighbors have noticed the intercropping trials on the Musafari’s farm and are beginning to adopt the practice to gain similar benefits. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
The majority of African farmers are smallholders who cultivate less than 2 hectares, explains Thierfelder. If they are to meet the food demand of a population set to almost double by 2050, bringing it to over 2 billion people while overcoming multiple challenges, they need much more productive and climate-resilient cropping systems.
New research identifies that the defining principles of conservation agriculture alone are not enough to shield farmers from the impacts of climate change. Complementary practices are required to make climate-resilient farming systems more functional for smallholder farmers in the short and long term, he warns.
“Intercropping with legumes is one complementary practice which can help building healthy soils that stand up to erratic weather,” says Thierfelder. “CIMMYT promotes climate-resilient cropping systems that are tailored to farmers’ needs,” he emphasizes.
“To sustainably intensify farms, growers need to implement a variety of options including intercropping, using improved crop varieties resistant to heat and drought and efficient planting using mechanization along with the principles of conservation agriculture to obtain the best results.”
The World Food Prize Foundation is honoring the work of Rattan Lal, who dedicated his life to study the effect of soil health in food production and climate change mitigation. On October 15 he will receive the 2020 World Food Prize, considered the “Nobel Prize” of agriculture.
